The Shape Of Things To Come: Denis Shapovalov!

Two big hitters. So far no one's been hitting big enough for long enough to really trouble Denis on the ground. If anyone can it might be Hamad. Rooting for Denis, though, to keep cruising!
 
Can’t believe the guy who could barely string together two decent matches or even get close to a final in two years suddenly comes out and blasts through qualies and the main draw to win his second title, 5 years after his first.
ghostofMecir said:
One thing that hasn’t been said enough is how much physically stronger and solid Shapo looks.
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Janko been cookin
 
Another excellent performance from Denis Shapovalov took him to his second ATP singles title earlier on Saturday in Belgrade. Solid off the ground and sovereign on serve, the Canadian never let his opponent, home hope Hamad Medjedovic, get into the match. Shapovalov hit 13 aces and only wobbled once when, serving for the first set at 5-4, he hit two double faults in a row to go 15-40 down. However, he then steadied himself to win the next four points, the game and the set.

An early break in the second set was all Shapovalov needed as he didn't face a break point in his last five service games. In the last game he served out confidently to love for an impressive 6-4, 6-4 win. When the new singles rankings are issued on Monday he will be situated around no. 55. With the Davis Cup Finals in Malaga just over a week away he will hope to take his current form to Spain and inspire his Canadian team mates to do well.
 
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Joseph_K said:
Another excellent performance from Denis Shapovalov took him to his second ATP singles title earlier on Saturday in Belgrade. Solid off the ground and sovereign on serve, the Canadian never let his opponent, home hope Hamad Medjedovic, get into the match. Shapovalov hit 13 aces and only wobbled once when, serving for the first set at 5-4, he hit two double faults in a row to go 15-40 down. However, he then steadied himself to win the next four points, the game and the set.

An early break in the second set was all Shapovalov needed as he didn't face a break point in his last five service games. In the last game he served out confidently to love for an impressive 6-4, 6-4 win. When the new singles rankings are issued on Monday he will be situated around no. 55. With the Davis Cup Finals in Malaga just over a week away he will hope to take his current form to Spain and inspire his Canadian team mates to do well.
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This confirms it,, Shapo will won 2 of the 4 majors next year and be #1
 
Shapo might not be the sharpest, but he certainly looked so, fresher and quicker in any highlight reel I saw and eager to step in. This enabled him to run around his weak backhand, get into the corners and forward to finish points.


I was impressed by the sharp angles played with higher spin than I remembered, exposing the movement issues of Lehecka in that particular match. Sometimes he seemed to take pages out of Sinner's book by rolling them over and following it up. More margin on his forehand as well, like Sinner, and finally limiting his backhand DTL show. Lots of guys enjoy that shot, but it was too often a big boom and bigger bust.

Stunning serve success, bringing that lefty heat to almost all the matches and playing often patterns which are just so hard for righties to counter.

His return of serve, more so with the backhand, was arguably the biggest surprise. We will see if he can finally break his low return duck, which would be a rare thing at this age. However, it is more likely for a player suffering from lapses of concentration and effort, like him and Kyrgios, because this sort of underperformance is more mental.


Apart from Blockx, he lost in the last two months only against big server Shelton and bigger server GMP, which might indicate that against elite servers, his return is still a limiting factor.
 
@Rovesciarete - Nice analysis.

In watching some recent training footage of Denis, it appears he's working at removing as much biomechanical excess from his 1HBH as possible (ie. more Lajovic, less Dimitrov/Gasquet), to make it as bulletproof as he can, and also getting his feet planted and set earlier on the forehand. Pretty sure at least a bit of both have been making their way to his match form as of late.

And for as often as we may diminish the role of the racquet to all but a zero-sum difference, I think the the recently-adopted 18x20 EZone 98 (an EZone 98D if you will) could be giving him the level of string bed consistency and forgiveness he's been searching for ever since switching to Yonex, but had yet to find with the SV95, regular EZ98, etc. Call it a micro-percentage if you will, but still, a boost nonetheless.

Ultimately, though, mentality is of course the majority component, and I think most could see in Belgrade that Denis seemed more composed, all the way around. He just kept his head down and focused. Almost zero over-reacting to anything. Going right back to his corner the very second the point was over, in the same manner every time, whether he won or lost the point, it didn't matter. Just way more consistency in his mannerisms. And if that is somehow traceable to the new coaching arrangement, then all the more power to it, and I hope they can stick together.
 
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Was this just a fluky hot streak after a year + of doing nothing, or will he finally achieve notable, consistent results in line with his immense potential?
 
Trip said:
@Rovesciarete - Nice analysis.

In watching some recent training footage of Denis, it appears he's working at removing as much biomechanical excess from his 1HBH as possible (ie. more Lajovic, less Dimitrov/Gasquet), to make it as bulletproof as he can, and also getting his feet planted and set earlier on the forehand. Pretty sure at least of both have been making their way to his match form as of late.
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I know that I will find little love for my view but the one-handed backhand is a poisoned fruit for a lefty. Going down the line into the backhand of the righty tastes so good but you pay for bitterly against strong cc forehands. A cleaner backhand is a better defensive one and he needs it for his returns and under pressure and he needs fitness to hunt of forehands.

Trip said:
And for as often as we may diminish the role of the racquet to all but a zero-sum difference, I think the the recently-adopted 18x20 EZone 98 (an EZone 98D if you will) could be giving him the level of string bed consistency and forgiveness he's been searching for ever since switching to Yonex, but had yet to find with the SV95, regular EZ98, etc. Call it a micro-percentage if you will, but still, a boost nonetheless.
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Might that help with those spinny shots he rolled into the angles? Seemed to play with more margin, taking away pace for spin from time to time. Good mental effort.
 
It has finally occured to me who Shapovalov reminds me of, both in appearance and demeanor:
Kelly "The Ghost" Pavlik, the former middleweight boxing champ, who lost only to
Bernard Hopkins (at a catchweight of 170 pounds) and Sergio Martinez.
 
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Rovesciarete said:
Shapo might not be the sharpest, but he certainly looked so, fresher and quicker in any highlight reel I saw and eager to step in. This enabled him to run around his weak backhand, get into the corners and forward to finish points.


I was impressed by the sharp angles played with higher spin than I remembered, exposing the movement issues of Lehecka in that particular match. Sometimes he seemed to take pages out of Sinner's book by rolling them over and following it up. More margin on his forehand as well, like Sinner, and finally limiting his backhand DTL show. Lots of guys enjoy that shot, but it was too often a big boom and bigger bust.

Stunning serve success, bringing that lefty heat to almost all the matches and playing often patterns which are just so hard for righties to counter.

His return of serve, more so with the backhand, was arguably the biggest surprise. We will see if he can finally break his low return duck, which would be a rare thing at this age. However, it is more likely for a player suffering from lapses of concentration and effort, like him and Kyrgios, because this sort of underperformance is more mental.


Apart from Blockx, he lost in the last two months only against big server Shelton and bigger server GMP, which might indicate that against elite servers, his return is still a limiting factor.
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Shapo definitely does not have the sharpest mental game that's for sure. I think a lot of factors were at play here and what we saw was the culmination of them. He has clearly taken whatever instructions Tipsarevic gave him to heart and we have seen the fantastic results. I also think that because it was the last tournament of the year he didn't have to hold anything back and pace himself for any tournaments after, and with that kind of weight off his shoulders he was able to go all out with a go broke or go home attitude and played incredibly loose working in his favor.

As for his backhand I would hardly call it weak outside of the basic fundamental OHBH weaknesses as it's better than most backhands on tour. I would say that the glaring weakness of his backhand is that in the past it has lacked variety which we are starting to see more of. I would go as far as to say that as big of a weapon as his forehand is that's the shot that breaks down the most during his game and leads to a lot of UEs and starts his tailspin out of control in most matches.

Regarding the sharp angles and higher spin, he has always had some of the highest combined RPMs on his forehand and backhand on tour. The thing is that he hits a very penetrating ball that kicks forward and not up with lower net clearance so we probably never saw the angles he could create until now.

I would agree that his return of serve and especially on the backhand side is a huge surprise as he tends to try to be the aggressor more often than not on returns and that usually bites him in the butt. However, ROS for a OHBH is usually a weakness due to the grip change and grip/wrist strength needed which makes it harder to be aggressive. Look at Wawrinka who was well known for his weak block/chip returns. It was effective and he has had a fantastic career regardless but definitely not ideal. However, I don't see this part of his game getting much better than what we just saw but I hope he proves me wrong!

I would say this result is a clear step in the right direction as he has been working on his mental game for the vast majority of the year. His switch to the Ezone has done wonders for his game, allowing him some greater forgiveness over his SV95 and I think it has slowed down his RHS ever so slightly allowing him to hit the ball cleaner leading to less miss hits. He has also shown a lot more variety in his shots and decision making utilizing the slice backhand and increasing his rally ball tolerance significantly since switching. In the past he has shown that he has an all court game that is solid off both wings, a fantastic serve, great movement, and good hands at net but he defaults to the baseline bashing of the current game. Part of me wonders if Tipsarevic looked at him and said, "look, you have all these tools to be a great attacking all court player, why are you only using a few of them?" resulting in this even more aggressive mentality encouraging him to step in. I only worry how he will play when he can't be the aggressor 100% of the time? Regardless I hope he can continue to put the pieces of his game back together and continue this mentality in the off season and into the next one!
 
SirCraigoryy said:
Shapo definitely does not have the sharpest mental game that's for sure. I think a lot of factors were at play here and what we saw was the culmination of them. He has clearly taken whatever instructions Tipsarevic gave him to heart and we have seen the fantastic results. I also think that because it was the last tournament of the year he didn't have to hold anything back and pace himself for any tournaments after, and with that kind of weight off his shoulders he was able to go all out with a go broke or go home attitude and played incredibly loose working in his favor.

As for his backhand I would hardly call it weak outside of the basic fundamental OHBH weaknesses as it's better than most backhands on tour. I would say that the glaring weakness of his backhand is that in the past it has lacked variety which we are starting to see more of. I would go as far as to say that as big of a weapon as his forehand is that's the shot that breaks down the most during his game and leads to a lot of UEs and starts his tailspin out of control in most matches.

Regarding the sharp angles and higher spin, he has always had some of the highest combined RPMs on his forehand and backhand on tour. The thing is that he hits a very penetrating ball that kicks forward and not up with lower net clearance so we probably never saw the angles he could create until now.

I would agree that his return of serve and especially on the backhand side is a huge surprise as he tends to try to be the aggressor more often than not on returns and that usually bites him in the butt. However, ROS for a OHBH is usually a weakness due to the grip change and grip/wrist strength needed which makes it harder to be aggressive. Look at Wawrinka who was well known for his weak block/chip returns. It was effective and he has had a fantastic career regardless but definitely not ideal. However, I don't see this part of his game getting much better than what we just saw but I hope he proves me wrong!

I would say this result is a clear step in the right direction as he has been working on his mental game for the vast majority of the year. His switch to the Ezone has done wonders for his game, allowing him some greater forgiveness over his SV95 and I think it has slowed down his RHS ever so slightly allowing him to hit the ball cleaner leading to less miss hits. He has also shown a lot more variety in his shots and decision making utilizing the slice backhand and increasing his rally ball tolerance significantly since switching. In the past he has shown that he has an all court game that is solid off both wings, a fantastic serve, great movement, and good hands at net but he defaults to the baseline bashing of the current game. Part of me wonders if Tipsarevic looked at him and said, "look, you have all these tools to be a great attacking all court player, why are you only using a few of them?" resulting in this even more aggressive mentality encouraging him to step in. I only worry how he will play when he can't be the aggressor 100% of the time? Regardless I hope he can continue to put the pieces of his game back together and continue this mentality in the off season and into the next one!
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Although, I didn't watch his matches entirely, I, too, noticed that he comes over many more bh returns than someone like Wawrinka.

When he's firing on all cylinders, he's reminiscent of Fed, as someone who leaned heavily offensively.
 
ey039524 said:
Although, I didn't watch his matches entirely, I, too, noticed that he comes over many more bh returns than someone like Wawrinka.

When he's firing on all cylinders, he's reminiscent of Fed, as someone who leaned heavily offensively.
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I would agree, when he's on he looks like a modern next gen version of Fed. Of course he lacks Fed's elegance and graceful movement around the court as well as his cool, calm, and collected demeaner among many other things i.e. consistency, shot selection, patience, etc.

However, in my opinion if he can refine his approach shot and net game he will have all the tools to play the most complete offensive game out of the currently active players.
 
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I don't think he has one major feature Fed did - the ability to consistently take the ball on the rise. Fed could hit all his shots, FH and BH, nearly off the bounce when he wanted, with full swings and still getting spin and consistency. IMO Shapo doesn't have this at all - like most players, he needs to have more time to wind up for his big swings. That's not really a knock against him, most players can't play like peak Fed.
 
ey039524 said:
Although, I didn't watch his matches entirely, I, too, noticed that he comes over many more bh returns than someone like Wawrinka.

When he's firing on all cylinders, he's reminiscent of Fed, as someone who leaned heavily offensively.
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Shapo's average BH speeds are so high because he hardly ever slices. He hits mostly drives, using his legs to get well under the ball and coming through with a straight arm. Very efficient and repeatable when he is on/focused. Fed sliced a lot more honestly but yes I've also been making the comparison

SirCraigoryy said:
I would agree, when he's on he looks like a modern next gen version of Fed. Of course he lacks Fed's elegance and graceful movement around the court as well as his cool, calm, and collected demeaner among many other things i.e. consistency, shot selection, patience, etc.

However, in my opinion if he can refine his approach shot and net game he will have all the tools to play the most complete offensive game out of the currently active players.
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I think Shapo actually has an even more catlike quality to his movement than Fed did. And he can do some things Fed couldn't do...

GrassCourtFan said:
I don't think he has one major feature Fed did - the ability to consistently take the ball on the rise. Fed could hit all his shots, FH and BH, nearly off the bounce when he wanted, with full swings and still getting spin and consistency. IMO Shapo doesn't have this at all - like most players, he needs to have more time to wind up for his big swings. That's not really a knock against him, most players can't play like peak Fed.
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...Fed couldn't do the skywalk BH though
 
Don't get me wrong, I'm not taking anything away from either Shapo or Fed as they are similar yet very different players for a lack of better words.

I would say Shapo is a better raw and athletic mover than Fed was at the same age. However, Fed was not a poor mover by any means and it was his top tier positioning that allowed him to move and glide around the court gracefully as he aged. What I meant before was that Fed's movement was more pleasing to the eye than Shapo's as it looked effortless as his game evolved. I would probably say that Fed's combination of positioning and speed are better than Shapo's allowing him to be in position to get more balls back. Where Shapo would beat Fed in a foot race to get a drop shot but Fed would already be 2-3 steps ahead of him due to his superior positioning. I would also say Shapo has a lot more natural firepower off the ground and on serve than Fed but he can't spot it the same way (similar but different).

Yes, Shapo for sure can't play as close to the baseline as Fed did and hit those shoelace pickups full tilt. As mentioned this is definitely due to his longer wind up and big swings that are common in the modern game which is why I was making the comparison that he is like a "modern" Fed because we all know there can only be one original. Fed took the racket out of his opponents hands using not only his racket and offensive game but also using his head. It seems like Shapo is putting the pieces together regarding the racket skills and game, now if his head follows suit we'll have a much deeper discussion on our hands for sure.
 
An interesting first-round encounter at next week's tournament in Adelaide sees the unseeded Denis Shapovalov take on his compatriot Felix Auger Aliassime, the no. 5 seed. The head-to-head between the two Canadians currently stands at 3-3, but they haven't played each other since the Stockholm tournament in November 2021.
 
After a withdrawal from the Adelaide tournament, Felix Auger Aliassime has been made the no. 5 seed, so won't have to take part in the first round. Denis Shapovalov will now play Zhang Zhizhen, who leads their head-to-head 1-0.
 
Joseph_K said:
After a withdrawal from the Adelaide tournament, Felix Auger Aliassime has been made the no. 5 seed, so won't have to take part in the first round. Denis Shapovalov will now play Zhang Zhizhen, who leads their head-to-head 1-0.
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That's weird; I thought that if a player withdraws after the draw is made, an LL from qualies will be a direct substitution in the draw for the withdrawn player, and not have players reassigned in the draw...
 
Denis still using a '22 EZone "98D" (custom 18x20 drill pattern) for maximum facial consistency and forgiveness, now with a fresh set of frames and the current color (click to enlarge):

DS-Adelaide-2025.png

​
He seems to be playing with more overall consistency and fewer shanks than anything he's tried previously (SV95, '22 EZ98), so I think he should stick with it.
 
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Rosstour said:
Anyone see his match vs ZZ? 3&4, hit him off the court, throwing in S&V and ending the match with a BH dropper. Really impressive
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I just caught up on the highlights and I've made many posts here on why I think the EZONE 18x20 seems to be a great fit and helped him make some great strides in improving his game so I will refrain from repeating myself; but it is impressive how much more consistent and steady he is playing and I'm happy his end of year form looks to be carrying over into the new year!

However, a coach at my club once told me during a lesson that I will quickly go from a high 3.5 - low 4.0 to a strong 4.0 and even 4.5 when the feeling of winning outweighs the feeling of blasting winners and playing "highlight tennis". I wonder if Shapo's new coach gave him a similar sentiment?
 
SirCraigoryy said:
However, a coach at my club once told me during a lesson that I will quickly go from a high 3.5 - low 4.0 to a strong 4.0 and even 4.5 when the feeling of winning outweighs the feeling of blasting winners and playing "highlight tennis". I wonder if Shapo's new coach gave him a similar sentiment?
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I'm sure Tipsarevic is very much trying to work on that, plus stabilizing his mind and on-court behavior, and ingraining as much overall IQ as possible. Whether it actually sticks, we'll see.

Versus ZZ, he played a decent-enough level, but he was back to being a lot more animated. IMHO, I'd rather see more of the unflappable, laser-focused demeanor we saw when he won in Belgrade. I think that would produce better tennis, game-in and game-out, but hey, what do I know. Maybe he needs all that peacockery to keep himself dialed in. Whatever gets the results I guess.
 
It uses to energy to react to points like that. Usually players who overact to winning points also overreact to losing points.
 
Trip said:
I'm sure Tipsarevic is very much trying to work on that, plus stabilizing his mind and on-court behavior, and ingraining as much overall IQ as possible. Whether it actually sticks, we'll see.

Versus ZZ, he played a decent-enough level, but he was back to being a lot more animated. IMHO, I'd rather see more of the unflappable, laser-focused demeanor we saw when he won in Belgrade. I think that would produce better tennis, game-in and game-out, but hey, what do I know. Maybe he needs all that peacockery to keep himself dialed in. Whatever gets the results I guess.
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Shapo is a stubborn one for sure so only time will tell. I too would like to see that laser-focused "locked in" demeanor as I also think it produces a more consistent day-to-day level as well. He is only 25 which is still pretty darn young mentally not that there aren't younger players who are more mature than him for sure and there are plenty of older players that never matured either which is a road I hope he doesn't go down.

However, I also think the game is changing. I think the game is evolving in the way that players are getting more and more athletic in the sense that pros on tour are no longer "tennis players who are athletes" but "athletes who are tennis players" if that makes sense? I think it is part of generation gap in how they grew up. In my opinion tennis is no longer "the gentleman's sport." These newer generation players grow up with social media, fame, and notoriety at their finger tips potentially influenced by other athletes in other sports. You see players in the NFL, NBA and across all the top leagues for European soccer/football. They do one good thing or one good play and they start to insult or showboat to the other teams and players. Sorry for the word vomit I think I got all my thoughts out there but I'm not sure how readable they are lol.

Then again to be the best you have to believe you are the best even when you're not.
 
As for the game changing in how you mentioned, absolutely. When even your late-teens and early-20-somethings are just as injury-prone as any other ages on tour, you know the intensity is at an all time high. Yes, there's the side argument that the youngsters are just softer, weaker and/or more immuno-deficient, some of which could be true, but I don't buy enough of that to explain the majority of difficulty they're having right along with every else. As for how that applies to Denis, he needs every possible edge he can get, especially on match-to-match consistency, so whatever he can do to help himself along, be it gear, coaching, physio, etc., it has to be done (just like everyone else is doing).
 
Rosstour said:
But in this case he is just shrugging off his mistakes (when they do happen)

So I'm ok with the hollering bc right now he's only doing it when he's won a big point and staying calm the rest of the time
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I would love to see him control his emotions. Nadal was pretty rare, being able to celebrate the positives, w/o reacting to the negative. Fed was able to keep his emotions in check, either way (at least after he began winning slams).
 
On Wednesday in Adelaide Denis Shapovalov will take on Marcos Giron for a place in the quarter-finals. The American won their only previous encounter, on clay in Houston in 2024.
 
Indeed, Marcos Giron beat Denis Shapovalov 7-5, 6-2 in second-round action in Adelaide on Wednesday. The Canadian made a good start and led 3-0 in the first set with a break. But then all the confidence and energy seemed to drain out of him and he began to commit a string of costly errors as Giron, playing very solidly, came back to win. At times Shapovalov was so bad that it was as if his positive end to 2024 had never happened.
 
Joseph_K said:
Indeed, Marcos Giron beat Denis Shapovalov 7-5, 6-2 in second-round action in Adelaide on Wednesday. The Canadian made a good start and led 3-0 in the first set with a break. But then all the confidence and energy seemed to drain out of him and he began to commit a string of costly errors as Giron, playing very solidly, came back to win. At times Shapovalov was so bad that it was as if his positive end to 2024 had never happened.
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Damn.
 
Yes, a four-set victory earlier on Tuesday for Denis Shapovalov against Robert Bautista Agut in first-round action in Melbourne. The match ended on a tiebreak in which the Canadian led by 3 points to 2 with two serves to follow. On the next point he made a forehand error and at 3-all he hit a double fault. Regaining confidence, the Spaniard moved to 6-3, three set points, but Shapovalov played well off the ground to pull back to 5-6. On his third set point Bautista Agut double-faulted. At 7-6, on his first match point, Shapovalov also double-faulted. However, he saved another set point at 7-8 and played well to take the next two points for the set and match at 3-6, 6-4, 6-4, 7-6(8).

In the next round Shapovalov will face the no. 16 seed Lorenzo Musetti. The Italian won their only previous encounter, also on a hard court, at Indian Wells last year.
 
Marius_Hancu said:
I am satisfied with his baseline game yesterday. 1HB solid enough against Agut.
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Also, RBA is exactly the type of player who's Shapo Kryptonite. Steady, unflashy, mentally tough. Beating him after dropping the first set speaks volumes about where Shapo's mentality is at right now.

Hate that he's drawn Musetti in R2, I can't decide who to root for. Denis Skywalker or Lore Atreides
 
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